Coaching

Therapy is more about exploring feelings in depth, making sense and processing. It can be short or long term.

Short term therapy is usually something people seek to help them through a difficult, one off event. Longer term therapy often involves uncovering ways you’ve learnt to adapt to life and how this might not be serving you any more. It often involves looking back to understand what happened then and what is happening now.

Therapy is deeply involved with allowing difficult feelings to emerge, developing self awareness, insight into yourself and how you relate to others. A therapist’s role is to sit with you in the depth of your emotional landscape and hold that space.

In contrast, coaching is more forward looking. There isn’t the same depth of emotional exploration and it isn’t about looking back to make sense. For me, coaching is for when the “and so what” question emerges – someone is at a place where they want to explore their thinking, the possibilities open to them and crucially want to take charge of their own actions in pursuit of “what now?” A coach’s role is to facilitate that person’s thinking.

If you’re not sure

If you approach me for coaching, one of the things I do is assess where you are in your journey. I’ll ask what support you’ve had or have. It’s important to me that if you’re paying for professional support, that this is the right type for you. I may, therefore, suggest that therapy is more appropriate.

Sometimes, it might seem that you’re starting to need a different kind of support whilst we’re working together. My approach is always to have a conversation; I’ll share what I notice and we can think together about any next steps. I appreciate that sometimes when you’ve built a relationship with someone you don’t want to go do the same with someone else – but the priority is always what is the best type of support and if it’s not what I offer, we need to agree together what happens next.